


i survived but i paid for it

by bexgempisces



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Daisy Johnson character study kind of, Daisy Johnson trauma Fic, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hugs, Sousa and daisy are really cute tho, breakdowns, daisy has thantophobia, look I’m trying, surprise its sad again, temporary character death descriptions, this is very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25404646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexgempisces/pseuds/bexgempisces
Summary: She kept scrubbing even as the water turned freezing because it wasn’t enough. Death still had her in its icy grip and it wasn’t going to let her go like it did when Lincoln died.SPOILERS FOR THE 7x09 PROMO: Daisy watched them die over and over again, was death going to follow her forever? And can she let Sousa into her world without the fear of losing him like the others?
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 4
Kudos: 180





	i survived but i paid for it

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, would you look at that. Another Daisy Johnson trauma Fic. But the writers just love traumatising her then not dealing with the fallout so I love to write it. 
> 
> So, basically everyone’s gonna die at least once in the next episode based on the promo. Not looking forward to it at all but I needed to get this out. This fic is gonna deal with the fallout of it, no one is killed permanently! And I didn’t go into how they broke the loop so just imagine it’s broken. 
> 
> Sousa and Daisy are really cute together so far and I’m really praying they don’t kill him off. This fic can be taken as romantic or platonic tbh, take it however you want. 
> 
> Also I fully believe Daisy has thantophobia which is the fear of losing someone you love. Like full headcanon that. 
> 
> I also feel like the whole Destroyer of Worlds and “death follows her” thing would have done a number on her self image and mental health so it’s addressed in this fic. 
> 
> Also I know Daisy can be strong on her own and isn’t as depressed as she is in this but cmon, she can’t be fully functioning with everything she’s been through without a lot of it being fake so I tried to deal with it it. 
> 
> As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments! Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and I love knowing what everyone thinks! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! -bex x

The water hit her hard as she desperately scrubbed her body. The cold feeling of death clung to her like it did after Hive and she wanted it _off._

She knew that everyone was fine, they had broken the loop this time. The deaths weren’t real. When she eventually left the shower they would be out there, alive. 

But behind her eyelids she could see Mack’s face, burned and blinded by the exploding engine. She could see the light in Daniel’s eyes extinguish as black blood dripped from his lips to her hands. She could see May, dying again in her arms and she wept because how many times would she have to do this? She could still see all their deaths, over and over and over again. 

She scrubbed mercilessly at her hands the way she did after the Framework. She forced her head under the boiling water the way she did when they came back from the future. Her skin was red raw and blistering the way it was after Ward betrayed them and she spent two hours trying to get him off her skin. 

How did this keep happening? 

She kept scrubbing even as the water turned freezing because it wasn’t enough. Death still had her in its icy grip and it wasn’t going to let her go like it did when Lincoln died. 

She doesn’t even realise she’s crying until she feels the warmth of her own tears intermingle with the cold of the water. In some way she knows this had to be coming, she would break down eventually. She’d kept it together after her torture session with Malick because they still had a mission. She had to be strong so no one else would get hurt. 

But they did. She watched everyone she loved die over and over again. And she couldn’t save them. She couldn’t even save herself in some of the loops and her own death clung to her as well. 

117 times. 

Three months of the same day over and over. Three months of the time storm and the engine exploding and the glass breaking. Three months of someone dying and her holding them. She scrubs at her hands again even though they’ve started bleeding because she can still feel Mack’s burnt flesh and Sousa’s blood and May’s broken breath and Yoyo’s hands and Jemma’s heart and Deke’s whispered words and the hand wrapped around her own throat. 

A knock at the door cuts through the water and her own thoughts. She comes to and realises that she’s probably been in here too long. Someone probably wanted the shower or to make sure she was okay. And she wasn’t, but no one could see her broken or they’d ask why and she couldn’t tell them. 

No one but her and Coulson knew how many times they’d looped. No one knew about the months she’d spent with them dying every day. No one knew the pain of watching the last good thing she had disintegrate in front of her. And she intended on keeping that pain to herself. 

She turned the shower off and surveyed the damage on her body. Her skin was bright red, bleeding and cracked in areas from her harsh fingers trying desperately to rid her body of the death that followed her. She checked her face in the mirror and wasn’t surprised to see the broken girl that she had become accustomed to seeing after Hive, Lincoln, her mother, the Framework, the future, Fitz cutting into her and every other bad thing. 

Some days were better and her brokenness didn’t reflect in the mirror, the emptiness wasn’t in her eyes. But most days, it was there. The dark circles from her broken and sleepness nights, the empty pits of her eyes were the light died in them the minute Hive’s dust entered her body and destroyed her completely, the scars from endless fighting because she had to keep fighting or she would go completely insane. She’s scared of the girl in the mirror and yet she’s so used to her she wonders how other people don’t see it. 

No, she does know why they don’t see it. She keeps it hidden from them with sarcastic comments and smiles. She pushes away the broken girl and forces herself the be Daisy Johnson. Because she has to be strong for everyone else. 

So, she dries off her body, wincing at the stinging skin and dresses in sweatpants and a tank top. She picks up her towels from the floor, wrapping her hands in them to hide the blood. 

She opens the door and prays it isn’t May. Even before she had empath abilities, May could see through her smiles and jokes. May was the only person Daisy allowed herself to be broken around and she couldn’t do that right now. Not when May would be able to feel it too. 

But in some strange way it’s almost worse when she opens the door and it’s Daniel standing there. 

It’s calming to see him standing, not lying in the floor dead or cradled in her arms in the kitchen dying again, like he was in loop 56. He’s still alive, they all are, she reminds herself. He’s standing in front of her. No blood, no gunshots, no stab wounds. 

“Hey,” his voice is soft, like he is afraid volume will hurt her,”I just wanted to check you were okay.” 

She smiles a little at that, a real smile. He always checks on her. But her smile evaporates when she remembers that this happened in most of the loops. He’d check on her, then he would die. He’d make sure she was okay when one of the team die if he survived that loop then the next day he’d die all over again. It was a cruel vicious cycle and she almost started crying again at the thought. 

But he doesn’t know any of that so she blinks away her tears. 

“Yeah, I’m good. Just needed a good long shower after everything.” She tried to play nonchalant and keep the weight out of her words but his eyes narrow and she knows he is just as adept at seeing through her as May. 

“ _Daisy.”_ He says her name like it is a poem. He says it like he did for three months and she knows that if she looks into his eyes she will see the truth in them. That he sees her brokenness. 

And she can’t deal with that. 

So she turns away from him because she can’t see his eyes without seeing the death in them. The death that follows her touched him. He died over and over again and every time she saw his eyes. She saw the history and truth they held. And if her destruction could touch him once, twice, twenty times, then he was too close. 

Everyone close to her dies or leaves. And she is so goddamn tired of it. 

She hates how cursed she is, how no one can survive being close to her. The curse of death looks over her head and she can’t let it touch anyone else. It makes her jealous of her team in some ways, they all get to come back to each other. Fitzsimmons, Mack and Yoyo, Coulson and May. They are separated often but they always get to come back. 

But not her. She is alone and has always been, will always be. 

So she pushes Sousa away and it burns, because she doesn’t want to. She wants him to hold her close and tell her it will be okay. She wants him to tell her that one day the war will be over and she can stop being a soldier and feel for once. That she can let someone see her brokenness and the scars she carries. That the burden of the endless strength she carries doesn’t rest on her shoulders alone. That he won’t leave, she can let someone in again.

But she is the Destroyer of Worlds and that title means more than a cracked earth. She will destroy everything good around her. She is cursed and death follows her. And it touched him twenty times already, this time will stick. Her very presence in his life will destroy him like it did everyone else. 

But he catches her. 

She tries to squirm away like she did when Mack came to her in containment and forgave her. She tries to fight it like she did then because she doesn’t deserve it, she will destroy him. How can he be this close to her and not immediately run?

But his grip is strong and his arms are familiar around her. She remembers his arms when he carried her out of the wreckage of Malick. She remembers his arms when she died in the loops, his hold a lifeboat in the ocean of death she was drowning in. Her body goes against her minds flashing warnings and she settles into his hug. 

She is crying again and this time she lets the tears fall. She finally feels safe because he is here, not dead and not leaving. He has seen her destruction 117 times over even though he doesn’t remember it and he is still here. 

“How are you still here?” She asks because she has to know how he is still with her. 

“I’m where I need to be.” His answer is simple and true. He pulls gently away to look at her and she finally lets herself look into his eyes. She doesn’t see the death, the destruction, the pain. She doesn’t see the curse she carries. She doesn’t see any of it. 

All she sees is deep, trusting brown eyes. She faith and love and hope, all the things she used to see in her own. It is what she sees when Mack and Yoyo look at each other, when Fitzsimmons reunite, when Coulson and May finally admit their feelings. 

“You died. Over and over again. How are you still here?” Because she still doesn’t quite understand how she hasn’t destroyed him yet. 

“Technically I died in 1955 so I’m pretty good at defying death.” 

She laughs at that. The sound is wet and foreign in her throat but she laughs. 

He smiles at her and she feels some of the weight of death hanging over lighten. He pulls her in again and she feels lighter than she has in years. 

His hand grazes her bare shoulders and she knows he is tracing the scars there. He is seeing her scars and her brokenness and he is still here. He has seen her curse and he is still here. 

“Please don’t leave. Please stay alive this time.” She begs because she can’t lose him again. Not like she lost all the others her curse destroyed. 

“Always.” She can feel him nodding over her head and she holds onto him a little tighter. 

And against her better judgement, she believes him. He isn’t going anywhere, not this time.


End file.
